Shalom, this is Rabi Jonathan Ginsburg of the Ezra-Habonim, the Niles Township Jewish Congregation. This video is about Jewish time. Now most people when we say Jewish time mean that would be late. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about not that ethnic joke that many ethnic culture say about there old behavior but how Jews organize time. First thing is the Jewish year, it is important to know that the Jewish year is a Lunar year and not a solar year. A lunar year is 354 days, which is perfectly final and believe that Muslims have a lunar calendar too and they do not intercalate there calendar with the Solar calendar but the Jews do. Because we want our spring festivals to be in the spring and our winter festivals to be in the winter, and it is the sun that determines that not the moon, so what we do is seven times in 19 years. We actually add an extra month to make up for those 11 days short for fall. That month is always in the spring, it is called Adar, Adar Bet or Adar Too so that is the Jewish year. we also have four new years in a Jewish year , most Jews know that there is one which we call Roshashana in the fall but Talmud our holy book and I have a you tube on Talmud and Mishna tells us that there are four new year. One of them is the first of Nisan when Passover falls in the middle of that month. Another is Tubishvat, I have a youtube on holidays you can look to know about this. Tubishvat falls in the middle of the month of Shevat and of course, the Roshashana we know. So those are the ideas of the Jewish year.
Jewish months, I think it is valuable for people to know the names of the Jewish months and you can get that by looking on a Jewish calendar. Get it online and know which month corresponds roughly to which solar month. Tishri I will tell you is the month, the seventh month of the year according to the bible, it corresponds usually to September and it is when the holiday of Roshashana, Yom Kippur and Succoth fall. Kashban is often called Mar Kashban, Bitter Kashban because it is a time when there is no Jewish holidays. Kislev is the next month, it corresponds to December and Hanukkah occurs on the 25th day of Kislev.
Tevet is the next month and then we have Shevat, which, corresponds usually to the end of January, and it is when the New Year of tree is fall. Then we have Adar and when there is no leap year there is only one and that is the middle of that month we have Purim and then every third year or so we Adar there are two Adar. The next after the year is Nisan when the bible says the year begins. That is usually April and Passover falls in the middle of that month. Iyar is the next month and in contemporary times we have added several important days in the Jewish calendar. We commemorate the holocaust to the end Nisan but we commemorate Israel’s memorial day and birth day in the month of Iyar,
Sivan is the next month usually June or the end of May and that is most famous because it has the holidays of Shavuot the anniversary of the giving of the Torah. Then comes Tammuz and Tammuz begins a three week period in seventeen of that month or mourning leading to the night of Av the night of the next month because it commemorates the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the holy temples. The next month Elul which corresponds usually to August and that is the preparatory month for our ten days or repentance in which begins our penitential prayers.
Now Jewish week is based on the Sabbath which is the seventh day of accommodating day begins Friday night and Saturday and we based the whole week around the Sabbath either prepare for the Sabbath or coming down to the Sabbath and that is the Jewish week Sunday being the first day. Jewish day is not the same exactly as in western culture. Western culture begins a day at midnight, many people consider day beginning when they get up in the morning and for Jews the Jewish day actually begins at sundown and ho do we know that? The sages read the Torah and it says that it was evening and it was morning, the first day was evening and it was morning the second day and so they determined that God wants us to begin a day at sundown. And so all our holidays begin at sundown and so do our days.
Now we even have Jewish Hours and Minutes, what do I mean by that? For example you are not allowed to eat any Lebow products, the morning before Passover after three hours. That does mean 3 60 minute hours, what they mean by that is you take all the sunlight minutes of the day, divide that into units of 12 so you might even have a 72 minute hour. And then you multiply three of those units, add that on to whatever sunrise is to determine when you are suppose to stop eating Hummits. it actually gives you the maximum amount of time if you live in a certain part of the hemisphere. Of course if you live in the part of the world were you have only three hours of sunlight, you got a different problem. Any way that is the basic concept of Jewish time starting from the year and going to the minute.
We also have counting of years, 5767 is this particular year? 5767, some extremist Jews would say that is the anniversary of the birth if the world. We know that is ridiculous. Who knows the world is 20 billion years old by our accounting standards. We do not believe that Genesis, a scientific book saying that one day is one day. One day could be 5 billion years but any case we have always our system of counting and it is valid as any other system. The Chinese have a different counting system. Segment is 2007 is completely obituary, what happened 2007 years ago, but we follow of course that counting of 2007 just because we are part of western civilization. We also have our own counting system. So this is the basic notion of Jewish time and of course the combination of Jewish time and world time we believe as the messianic era and we pray that Elisa will come some day and tell us that the messiah is here. And we can all live under own vine and fig tree and no one will make us afraid and nation will now lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn more anymore.
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